Linz Goater, from Aldwick, near Bognor, was running along the beach when he saw the animal’s body directly down from The Waverley towards the end of the beach huts.
“It seemed to have been dead a while because it had no eyes,” he said.
“Turtles have no business round here – it probably washed off course from the South Atlantic.”
Linz and others on social media have speculated that it may have been the body of a hawksbill – a species of turtle which is critically endangered and found mainly throughout the world’s tropical oceans, predominantly in coral reefs.
Linz, who has a masters degree in taxonomy from the National History Museum, sent photographs of his discovery to the strandings department at the museum with a pin of its location.
“There might be someone in the scientific community who might be interested in finding its cause of death and using this to build up a picture,” he said.
“I scuba dive and I have never seen a turtle off the UK coast before.
“It’s slightly novel – you never know what you’ll find on the beach. Seeing the marine life is one of the reasons why we moved here.”
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